U of I settles with surgeon

The University of Illinois Board of Trustees approved a $2.5 million deal settling a legal battle with a physician who accused the transplant program at the university's Chicago medical center of falsifying diagnoses to make more patients eligible for transplants.

The hospital's former chief of transplant surgery, Raymond Pollak, filed three suits in 1999 alleging that he was removed as head of the program and his salary was cut by more than half after he raised his concerns. Under the deal, Pollak would end his legal actions and no longer work at the university.

The university denied wrongdoing.

In 2003, it paid $2.5 million to settle a whistle-blower suit in which Pollak accused the transplant program of fraud. The government joined the suit, and Pollak received $500,000 of the settlement. Again, the university denied wrongdoing.